From inbreeding his family on “Big Love,” to playing happy torturer on “True Blood,” to helping Ted Danson eviscerate the life savings of thousands of trusting employees on “Damages,” Zeljko Ivanek has become TV’s No. 1 go-to creepy guy.

“I think it’s the deep-set dark eyes and kind of thin face,” says Ivanek, who was born in Slovenia and moved to the US when he was a child. “I just look a little sinister, apparently. Not to my friends or family, who know and love me, but you stick me in a suit and it has certain connotations.”

If creepy is what you’re looking for, it would seem that his role as Director of National Intelligence Blake Sterling on NBC’s “The Event” is shaping up nicely.
Ivanek’s brand of menace found a home on cable and network television.
Joseph Viles/NBC
Ivanek’s brand of menace found a home on cable and network television.
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On the show’s first episode, Ivanek tries to sway Blair Underwood’s President Elias Martinez against releasing prisoners from what sounds like a Guantanamo Bay-type facility, claiming that “we sacrifice the rights of the few for the safety of the many all the time.”

But is it possible that as the show evolves, Ivanek might actually turn out to be — gasp! — the good guy?

“[This role] subverts the things I tend to have a lot of fun doing,” says Ivanek, 53. “One of [the creator’s] intentions is to make sure that what you see at face value is not necessarily what you get. As the story progress, everybody’s motivations are in question, good and bad, and we’ll have to reexamine who’s doing the right thing and who’s not.”

“The Event” is the latest attempt at an evolving mystery in the realm of “Lost,” with terrorist hijackings and mysterious disappearances and even a presidential assassination attempt that ends with a miraculous rescue.

But for every “Lost”-style hit, there are far more “Flash Forward” flops.

But, after years of memorable, guest actor work on shows like “Lost,” “24,” “Oz,” “The X Files,” “Homicide” and more, he wanted a place to call home.

“Right now, it feels really good,” he says. “There’s just something nice about showing up on a lot and belonging there. The continuity is comforting.

“There’s a huge difference between going to work some place day to day, and just showing up for a few days. In most situations I’ve been lucky, but you’re a visitor. You’re always a visitor.”

Ivanek says that the pleasure of playing these roles comes from figuring out what makes the villain tick.

“Twirling your mustache is fun,” he says, “but it’s more fun to try to figure out how these people justify themselves. They don’t set out like, ‘I’m just going to be bad today.’

“They find some way of explaining the world to themselves that says that they deserve those things, and the things they do to get them are justifiable. What those ways are is fun to figure out.”

Being so good at being so bad has led to some scene-stealing from Hollywood’s best actors — including Glenn Close and Ted Danson in the first season of “Damages.” He was so smarmy he won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor.

“I’ve been really lucky in my work situations, but that was above and beyond,” says Ivanek, whose character, Ray Fiske, blew his brains out in the office of Glenn Close’s Patty Hewes.

“’”Winning an Emmy — for a short time, anyway — led him to greater gigs.

“The first two jobs after that definitely were influenced by the Emmy,” says Ivanek of his stints on “Big Love” and “Heroes.”

“I don’t know if that [award] has a really longlasting effect. People think, ‘we should want him, because other people are gonna want him right now.’

“Then there’s a whole new crop of people the next year. And then it’s just a nice thing after your name. But for a moment, it stabilized things, and got me jobs that were longterm.”

Even as a semi-regular, Ivanek has a knack for appearing on the buzziest shows on television.

His recent stint on “True Blood,” for example, landed him in the midst of a genuine phenomenon that’s also a world-class freak show.

“You step back and look around and go, ‘my God. I can’t believe what all these people are doing in this room,’” he says. “When I see this on TV, I don’t even remember being there, because I don’t remember this world seeming like this. It wasn’t until I saw it that the whole bacchanalia was clear to me. They’re remarkable alchemists in what they do.”

For now, he’ll gladly trade flash for stability and hopes that “The Event” gives him a place to be sinister for years to come.

“We got picked up for 13 episodes, which take us through Christmas,” he says. “I just cross my fingers that it does well and that we’ll be around for a while.”

Source:nypost